Anti-violence group's backers seek a reprieve

Supporters of Operation SNUG ask governor to spare the program

JORDAN CARLE, Times Union

By JORDAN CARLEO-EVANGELIST Staff writer

Updated 11:52 pm, Tuesday, October 11, 2011

About 100 community activists, residents and politicians rallied Tuesday morning outside the Executive Mansion on Eagle Street to protest the closing of an anti-violence program known as Operation SNUG amid state budget cuts.
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About 100 community activists, residents and politicians rallied...

Children from the Albany Free School hold signs during a rally in support of the continuance of Albany's SNUG anti-violence initiative in front of the Governor's Mansion in Albany, N.Y. Tuesday Oct. 11, 2011. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union)

Children from the Albany Free School hold signs during a rally in...

Albany Common Council member Dominick Calsolaro talks to the press during a rally in support of the continuance of Albany's SNUG anti-violence initiative in front of the Governor's Mansion in Albany, N.Y. Tuesday Oct. 11, 2011. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union)

ALBANY-- Boosters of an anti-violence program doomed by state budget cuts took their plea to save it to Gov. Andrew Cuomo's doorstep Tuesday, asking the governor for an 11th-hour reprieve.

Despite being credited by police and community activists with helping quell violence while reversing neighborhood tolerance of it, Operation SNUG -- for "guns" spelled backward -- will close Friday without an infusion of new funding.

Carrying signs that read "Save SNUG; Save lives" and chanting "Don't shoot, we want to grow up," the protesters spilled off the sidewalk in front of the governor's mansion and into Eagle Street.

The year-old program is run by the nonprofit Trinity Alliance with support from the University at Albany School of Social Welfare and is one of 10 pilot sites around New York backed with an initial $4 million of state money and announced with much fanfare on the steps of the Capitol in 2008.

But bureaucratic hang-ups stalled SNUG's launch until 2010, and new funding for the program was left out of Cuomo's 2011-12 budget amid an effort to erase an estimated $10 billion deficit.

Councilwoman Cathy Fahey said the rally was being held in solidarity with the ongoing demonstrations by Occupy Wall Street protesters in lower Manhattan and elsewhere across the country.

"Wonderful programs like SNUG would not be cut if our billionaire bankers were paying their fair share," Fahey shouted to the approval of the crowd, a mix of residents, community activists and fellow politicians.

Longtime Arbor Hill resident Beverly Padgett said SNUG's success has been visible beyond simply helping reduce the number of people shot in the city by 29 percent over the first eight months of the year. She said SNUG has also helped recruit citizens to back the message of nonviolence.

"I'm seeing more and more residents come out of their houses, not just look out of their windows," Padgett said.

Willie White, founder of the South End community group AVillage Inc., quoted the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. passionately and at length before declaring SNUG's termination "an injustice to an entire community."

A spokesman for Cuomo did not return a phone or email message seeking comment.

SNUG, which is based on a Chicago program known as CeaseFire, attempts to fight violence by treating it as a public health problem akin to smoking. Its five pillars are street-level outreach, public education, community mobilization and cooperation with local faith leaders and police.

On Friday, Mayor Jerry Jennings suggested that he would be able to find money to spare the program. His office remained optimistic Tuesday but could not provide details of any potential deal.

Anxiety remains among SNUG's biggest boosters. Of vital importance, they said, is not only that the program be funded throughout the state, but that all five pillars remain intact and that it -- above all -- remains based in the community, not law enforcement, which is widely seen as the keystone of its legitimacy.

The program has been gradually shutting down for three weeks ahead of Friday's closing date, including severing its relationships with teens its workers had identified as being at risk of being pulled into violence. The number of employees has shrunk from six to two.

Michael Guidice -- a resident of nearby Grand Street, the scene of several recent police calls reporting gunfire -- praised the police department's move toward community policing but said SNUG embodies the community's responsibility to help stop the violence. Guidice made his appeal directly to Cuomo.

"I'm not an elected official. I'm not a community leader," he said. "I'm just a resident and neighbor of the governor."